Cook v. Mississippi
Annotate this CaseJoe Cook was convicted on two counts of sexual battery on his girlfriend’s daughter and for one count of directing or causing a felony to be committed by the girlfriend’s son. Cook was sentenced as an habitual offender to a life sentence for each of the two sexual battery counts and to twenty years for the single count of causing a felony to be committed by a minor. The three sentences were made to run concurrently. Cook argued on appeal that the children’s statements to a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) constituted inadmissible hearsay, that the children’s statements to their great-grandmother and to a forensic interviewer constituted inadmissible hearsay, and that the trial court erred by sentencing him as an habitual offender. Finding no merit to Cooks arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed his convictions and sentences.
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